I fully agree with your last sentence. Sadly I don't often see that actually happen in practice. And when the notation isn't explained I personally tend to wast

I fully agree with your last sentence. Sadly I don't often see that actually happen in practice. And when the notation isn't explained I personally tend to waste a lot of brain cycles trying to decide what the notation means because I'm reading material that I don't already know (of course - if I already knew the material I probably wouldn't be reading it).